¤ Richa-Rucha problem in Sanskrit. Translated into Bur-Myan, it is
{i.}
- 
{u.} problem. ¤ Dialects of Sanskrit , each belonging to a separate religious belief in Hinduism - the religion.
Update: 2019-02-26 08:24 PM -0500
Vowel.htm
by U Kyaw Tun (UKT) (M.S., I.P.S.T., USA),
Daw Khin Wutyi, Daw Thuzar Myint, Daw Zinthiri Han
and staff of Tun Institute of Learning (TIL).
Not for sale. No copyright. Free for everyone.
Prepared for students and staff of TIL
Research Station, Yangon, MYANMAR
-
http://www.tuninst.net ,
www.romabama.blogspot.com
•
Introduction
¤ Vowel Letters, Vowel Signs, misnomers and
undefined
• Inherent vowel and Nuclear vowel
Specifically the terms are from Abugida-Akshara System:
Inherent vowel of the Akshara and the Nuclear vowel of the Syllable .
In the Alphabet-Letter System, the basic unit is the mute Letter which has no
Inherent vowel. Only the Nuclear vowel of the Syllable matters.
• Basic vowels
¤ Richa-Rucha problem in Sanskrit. Translated
into Bur-Myan, it is
{i.}
-
{u.} problem.
¤ Dialects of Sanskrit , each belonging to a separate religious belief
in Hinduism - the religion.
- UKT 180815, 180912, 190205
In English (Eng-Lat) Vowels and Consonants are all that matters.
See Section 2: Human Voice and Languages
- English phonetics - Eng-phon-indx.htm (link chk 180919)
and its nested files: short vowels - short-vow.htm / long vowels - long-vow.htm /
diphthongs and triphthongs - diphth.htmThough there are just 26 letters (made up of vowels and consonants) in Eng-Lat language there are approximately 44 phonemes, and so English has to use digraphs and trigraphs to approximate the phonemes. The 44 sounds help distinguish one word or meaning from another. Remember, the number 44 is just an approximation because of accents, dialects and the evolution of language itself.
The most troublesome in Eng-Lat speech is the stress (marked with ' ). Listen to the stress in the following words: .
- stress on the first syllable: English <)), second <)), photo <)), upper <)),
- differentiation of noun & verb: 'produce <)) (n) / pro’duce <)) (v) ; 'subject <)) (n) / sub’ject <)) (v) ; 'object <)) (n) / ob’ject <)) (v).
- native words and those derived from Greek or Latin:
- love <)), lovely <)), lovable <)), loveliness <)), lovableness <)), (native - constant on the first syllable).
- ‘photograph <)), pho’tography <)), photo’graphic <)) (derived)
- 'equal <)), e’quality <)), equalization <)), equilit’arian <)) (derived),
we find the stress shifting from one syllable to another as the word gets longer.However, in Burmese (Bur-Myan), we have to take care of two more of aksharas: Approximants and Nasals.
In Bur-Myan, stress is not all important. You can easily differentiate a Bur-Myan person born and raised outside Myanmarpré, from those Bur-Myan born and raised outside. My grandsons, and their parents speak the same Bur-Myan language in different ways, whereas I who have taken pains to learn North-American pronunciation speak similar to a Canadian anglophone. See:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allophone_(Canada) (180919)To encompass the languages in BEPS, we will need more subdivisions, such as Liquids, Sibilants & Thibilants, and what I'm calling Deep-H (under Approximants), and Semi-nasals and True-nasals. If you fine tune your need for one-to-one transcription of you may need more, but for BEPS we will have to draw a line.
In Alphabet-Letter system what are important are
the vowels and consonants. The Rhymes or endings
are not important. Eng-Lat and most of the European
languages have only two nasals
{na.} (1 eye-blnk) and
{ma.} (1 blnk), which I am calling the True
Nasals. Eng-Lat does not the Semi-Nasals,
{gna.}/
{ng},
{ña.}/
(ñ}, and
{Na.}/
{N}.
Don't forget that in BEPS: Nya'gyi aka Nya-major is a basic consonant. It is an approximant similar to Ya, and both Nya'gyi
{Ña.} and Ya
{ya.} can be under Virama aka A'thuk
{a.þût} as
{Ñ} ,
{ý}.
- UKT 180822: Whenever we speak of the vowels
{þa.ra.} in BEPS , remember there are two kinds
of vowels in Abugida-Akshara system: the
inherent vowel of the consonantal-akshara
and the nuclear vowel of the syllable.
However, in Alphabet-Letter system, the Letter is
mute because it does not have an inherent
vowel. The way to change the Abugida-Akshara
system into Alphabet-Letter is to used the
Virama
{a.þût} to kill the inherent vowel of the Akshara.
To mitigate the problem of widely different
pronunciations between the three major language
groups - the Tib-Bur, IE, and Aus-Asi, I have to
increase the number of BEPS vowels to 16. Bringing
in Rhoticity exemplified by BEPS Ra'ric notation,
helps to bridge between Bur-Myan (non-rhotic) and
Skt-Dev (highly rhotic especially in the southern
dialect of Tamil & Telugu speakers).
The most unfamiliar vowel to the Bur-Myan speakers
is the highly rhotic Sanskrit vowel is
{iRRi.} ऋ .
It is probable that to avoid this vowel
the ancient Bur-Myan phoneticians has used {ÉÑ}
in our common words, such as:
{ÉÑ.þæÑ} - guest - MED2010-625
The most unfamiliar vowel to the Classical Skt-Dev
speakers is the highly lateral Védic vowel is
{iLLi.} ऌ . I have not included this vowel
in my table of BEPS vowels because of its rarity
in Skt-Dev. You should note that ऌ is
pronounced in two ways depending on the dialect:
either as
{li.} or
{lu.} without any /r/ sound.
Now listen to a short sound clip on Sanskrit vowels:
bkcnd-Skt<))
"I said there are 9 vowels in Sanskrit. They are
अ इ ऊ ऋ ऌ ए ऐ ओ औ ...
Of these, the first five
अ इ ऊ ऋ ऌ are simple
vowels, while ए ऐ ओ औ are
called Diphthongs. They are combination of two vowels
each. ... one special feature of the language ...
ऌ ... no /r/ sound. ... Vedic language ...
Classical language ... "
Those at the TIL Research station can watch the same clip : L103Skt<Ô>
I view Diphthongs in Bur-Myan as a misnomer. They are pronounced as monophthongs: they are Digraphs derived from two simple vowels.
The Vowels Letters are such as
{I.} इ (1 eye-blnk) and
{I} ई (2 blnk) in Bur-Myan. They are stand alone glyphs. In Bur-Myan there is
another called Akshara-I
{ak~hka.ra i.} which I will simply call
"undefined". It is more commonly used in my younger days at the end of
sentences. In a way it is commonly used as the word Period in English -
no more arguments.
See: Chapter 9: South-Asian Scripts I - UnicodeCh09<)) / Bkp<)) (link chk 180918)
"The scripts of South Asia [e.g. Devanagari] share so many common features that a side-by-side comparison of a few will often reveal structural similarities even in the modern letterforms."
Unicode failed to recognized that Myanmar script is probably (I emphasized "probably"), the predecessor Asokan, the parent of Devanagari script. See: ¤ Travels of Ta თ /t/ from Burma to Georgia - Paradigms.htm (link chk 180919)
Unlike the European scripts used by English and French spoken languages, which
uses the Alphabet-Letter system of speech-to-script transliteration, Burmese,
Pali and Sanskrit spoken languages use the Abugida-Akshara system. The two
systems are radically different because the basic unit of the Alphabet is the
Letter, such as k and t . Both are mute - not pronounceable,
and IPA marked them as /k/ and /t/ respectively.
On the other hand, the basic unit of the Abugida is the Syllable - which is pronounceable. I need to define, unequivocally, by what I mean by Syllable, and the rule governing it known as Syntax.
The Alphabet-Letter system is used mainly in the West in the European
languages, whereas the Abugida-Akshara system is used mainly in the East
(but not Far East) in the Asokan-linked languages. Based on the shapes of the
glyphs, I'm beginning to form the opinion that Myanmar Script may be the
predecessor of Asokan Script, and I'm beginning to use the term Asokan-linked
instead of Asokan-derived . The only evidence I've so far is the shape of
the r4c1 Akshara (or Letter) with the IPA pronunciation /t/, found in
Georgian Script თ {t} which belongs to Alphabet-Letter System and Myanmar
Script
{ta.} of the Abugida-Alphabet System:
There are 16 basic vowels to handle all the 4 languages of BEPS.
Notice: The video and sound marks, <Ô> & <)) , in TIL files will help you to go through BEPS languages. Some of the signs <)) will let you hear the sound whether you are on your own computer or on a TIL research computer. But the sign <Ô> , and most <)) will only let you see the video in TIL SD-Library (Secure Digital Library) when you are on a TIL research computer. As an example, watch downloaded pdf in TIL HD-PDF and SD-PDF libraries
- ACunningham-InscriptAsoka<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180325)
in which you will see a map of the extent of Magadha Empire ruled by King Asoka - the Great, where there are the inscriptions. It 4as now become my experience to see the links to TIL SD-Library fail many times, because of which I have now included a BkCnd-LIB (Library for the Book-Candle-Index). You'll be able to see the downloaded pdf
- ACunningham-Asoka-inscrip«Ô» (link chk 180325)
It is now accepted that the oldest speech
{sa.ka:} is Vedic, most probably of the Tib-Bur
(Tibeto-Burman language) group, and not of the
Classical Sanskrit of Panini. Sanskrit belongs
to IE (Indo-European) group. It was also used by
speakers of Aus-Asi (Austro-Asiatic) group such
as the Tamils. See Wikipedia:
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil-Brahmi 180325
-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammar_of_the_Vedic_language
180325
Tamils using Tamil-Brahmi is similar to Mon-Myan
using the basic Myanmar script.
UKT 171208, 180326: The postulate of Shin Kic'si
{shin kic~sæÑ}: "The signification is known by akshara" was highly approved by the Gautama Buddha, who then declared his disciple monk as the greatest "grammarian".
See my note on this postulate on p077F.htm (link chk 180325)
The motto is also in Mason-Mazard, p036 in TIL HD-PDF and SD-PDF libraries.
- FMasonMazard-KicsiPali<Ô> / bkp<Ô> (link chk 171224)
Notice how the syllable
{té} ते is written in scripts of Pali-Myan, Engl-Lat, and Skt-Dev. The order (by position) of vowel glyph
{þa.wé hto:} - written as
, and the consonant
Pali-Myan: vowel (left) - consonant (right):
Engl-Latin: consonant (left) - vowel (right): te
Skt-Dev: vowel (above) - consonant (below): तेIn BEPS-Myan, vowel glyph Tha'we'hto
Downloaded paper in TIL HD-PDF and SD-PDF libraries:
- MJenny-IntroMonLang<Ô> / Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180403)
The writing system, script
{sa}, of King Asoka
{a-þau:ka. mín:kri:}, should be called Asokan
(now erroneously dubbed Brahmi). This has led
many to believe that is the script of Ponnar
{poaN~Na:} - the language of Hinduism, the Atta
{ût~ta.} religion. Emperor Asoka
{a-þau:ka. mín:} was Buddhist. He was never
a Hindu. Before his conversion to Buddhism -
the scientific philosophy based on the Anatta
{a.nût~ta.} doctrine, he was a Jain - a religion
similar to Buddhism. Anatta
{a.nût~ta.} is the antithesis of Atta
{ût~ta.} and the two can never be reconciled.
There are at least two major kinds of Ponnar
{poaN~Na:} 'bramin': the Braahmana Poannar
{braah~ma.Na. poaN~Na:}, and the Shaivite Ponnar
{þi-wa. poaN~Na:}. These speak different dialects
of Skt-Dev. See Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richa
- UKT 180822:
Refer to Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richa 171209
UKT 171209, 180102, 190226: The problem of Richa (front vowel) and Rucha (back vowel); I base my view on the fact that Vedic and Sanskrit (the latter with two dialects) are two different languages. Vedic is Tib-Bur, whereas Sanskrit-Hindi is IE, and Sanskrit-Kannada is Aus-Asi. Vedic like Bur-Myan is almost non-rhotic, whereas Sanskrit is highly rhotic. The highly rhotic Sanskrit vowel ऋ was not originally present in Vedic. It was the Poannars
I had noticed the Ri-Ru problem a long time ago when I was doing the vowels. See p057-1.htm on words referring to 'season (meteorology), menses (physiology): BPali:
{U.tu.} (back vowel) --> Skt: ऋतु «ṛtu» (front vowel). For a serious work on 'seasons', read Kalidasa's Ṛtusaṃhāra ऋतुसंहार = ऋतु «ṛtu» 'season' + संहार «saṃhāra» 'compilation'.
" Rucha , ऋचा
[Vedic pronunciation - unknown; Hindi
(northern India - IE): «richa»; Marathi
or Kannada (southern India - Aus-Asi)
«rucha»] refers to a shloka (couplet)
or mantra, usually two to four sentences
long, found in the Sanskrit
Vedic religious scriptures, the Vedas
[UKT maintains that Veda were originally Tib-Bur which is not rhotic] [UKT ¶]
UKT 171209: I've inserted the /richa and /ric into the following paragraph. The Wikipedia article is biased towards southern India.
"The etymological origin of rucha/richa
is the Sanskrit Vedic word,
ruc
(ऋच्), which means
to praise.
[1]
Rucha/richa, is therefore, one ruc/ric after
the other. Other meanings of ruc/ric
are splendour, worship, a hymn.
[2]
Rucha/richa can also refer to a verbal
composition of celestial sounds called
"shrutis"; the
Gayatri Mantra is a rucha/richa as well.
Rucha/richa means "aphorism of Rig
Veda".
" Richa is a
popular given name among Hindu females." --
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richa
171122
UKT 171209: See also Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaksha_Prashna
171209
"Yudhishthira, [officially the son of
Pandu, the human, but in actuality the son
of Yama-deva] replied, "Breath is like
Mantra in the performance of rites. Mind is
the performer of all rites in the course of Yajna. Only Shlokas of the Vedas, termed
rucha or the richa accept
oblation. The Yajna cannot surpass nor
transgress the richas". UKT comment:
Obviously, the Poanna (the foreign invaders
into India cannot decide which pronunciation,
"ric" (the front vowel) or
"ruc" (the back vowel) is correct.
Each belonging to a separate religious belief in Hinduism - the religion.
The northern kind, the Vaishnavites aka the
Braahmana Poannar
{braah~ma.Na. poaN~Na:} believe in Vishnu-déva
{baiþ~þa.no: nût} (and his reincarnate King Krishna)
as the Supreme Being*.
These Ponnars are also known as Brahmana
{braah~ma.Na.}. Their philosophy is embodied in
Bhagava Gita preached by the human King Krishna before
his human death and re-deification. They wrote in one
kind of Brahmi - Asokan-Brahmi.
*See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Being (180401)
"Supreme Being is a term used by theologians and philosophers of many religions, including Christianity, Islam, [1] Hinduism, [2] Judaism, Sikhism, Jainism, Deism [3] and Zoroastrianism as an alternative to the term God.de·ism - n. ¹. The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation. - AHTD
UKT 180401: The word "God" is an Eng-Lat term, and since all other religions mentioned by the Wikipedia article are written in non-English speech-script systems, the phrase at is a translation and its subtle implied meanings is sure to be misinterpreted. Because of this, I use the term Supreme Being or Supremo for: YHVH in Judaism, God in Christianity, and Allah in Islam.
As for Hinduism, since the Supremo is a déva, the term God should not be used. In Bur-Myan, Supremo is
{Bu.ra.} a term usually used for Gautama Buddha who was a human being of infinite wisdom. Thus
The Burmese Christians tried to get around this problem by calling their God as
{hta-wa.ra. Bu.ra.} and the uninitiated misinterpret that Gautama Buddha is somehow inferior to their God. This is just proselytism, and many - uneducated and ignorant - have fallen prey to it. I'm writing this from my observation of mix marriages. Their children usually become Boadkric
{boaD~hka.ric}, participating and enjoy every feast of both religions, but ignoring the basic principles of both religions. The educated among them became cynical and anti-religion. Proselytism doesn't work in the modern society.
The second major kind of Poannar is the Shaivite
{þi-wa. poaN~Na:} who believe in Shiva-déva
{þi-wa. nût} as the Supreme God and Creator.
They do not accept Bhagava Gita as the word
of the Supreme God. According to
Dr. Rajeev Verma in his Faith &
Philosophy of Hinduism 2009, their
equivalent of Bhagava Gita are to be found
in Upanishads, particularly Svetashvatara.
They wrote in a variant of Brahmi now
accepted as Tamil-Asokan or Tamil-Brahmi.
This is comparable to the case of
Myanmar akshara
{sa} used by Burmese
{sa.ka:} speakers (Tib-Bur), and Mon
{sa.ka:} speakers (Aus-Asi).
"The Shvetashvatara Upanishad श्वेताश्वतरोपनिशद «ś vetāśvataropaniṣad» is an ancient Sanskrit text embedded in the Yajurveda. It is listed as number 14 in the Muktika canon of 108 Upanishads. [1] The Upanishad contains 113 mantras or verses in six chapters. [2]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shvetashvatara_Upanishad 170901UKT 170901: श्वेता = श ् व े त ा ; श्वत = श ् व त . In Bur-Myan, श {sha.} is a rarely used phoneme, and ष {Sa.} is unknown. What we have in Bur-Myan is स {þa.} which is /θ/. On the other hand, स «sa» is /s/ in Skt-Dev. When स «sa» /s/ is transformed into स {þa.} /θ/ without taking the pronunciations into consideration, we ended up giving the wrong meanings and implications. Because of this, I have to be very careful in comparing Skt-Dev to Pal-Myan, and have to come up with two new glyphs
{sha.}/
{sh} श/श् , and
{Sa.}/
{S} ष/ष् .
The third kind of
{poaN~Na:} 'bramin', which may be considered to be
related to the second kind is the Shakta who believe
in the primeval Mother-goddess as the supreme God
(no differentiation between male and female here) is Shakti - generally known as Shaktism.
Asokan script is a phonetic script and could transcribe
many speeches of various linguistic groups of India:
Tibeto-Burman (Tib-Bur), Austro-Asiatic (Aus-Asi) and
Indo-European (IE). It predates the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) by thousands of years. However,
"the early Asokan variant of Brahmi lacks many
conjuncts and vocalic letters."
-
http://www.virtualvinodh.com/wp/asokan-brahmi/ -180711
UKT 170224: While looking up for Dravidian languages - Telugu (75 million speakers*), Tamil (70 million), Kannada (55 million), and Malayalam (38 million) - I came upon another variant of Asokan, dubbed Tamil-Brahmi which is not the same as Asokan-Brahmi. See Wikipedia:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil-Brahmi 170224
"Tamil-Brahmi, or Tamili, is a variant of the Brahmi script used to write the Tamil language. ... Tamil Brahmi was not deciphered as a separate script until the mid-20th century. Until then it was assumed to have been Standard Brahmi writing in a Prakrit language. ..."
*See Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_languages 170224
Yet, Asokan may not be the precursor of Pal-Myan,
because of the possible absence of Pali vertical
conjuncts,
{paaHT-hsín.}. I'll have to look into
¤ A Pali grammar on the basis of Kaccayano
{rhín kic~sæÑ:} in Bur-Myan) - by
Rev. F. Mason, 1867. See TIL HD-PDF and
SD-PDF libraries:
-
FMason-KicsiPaliGram<Ô> /
bkp<Ô> (link chk 171224)
-
FMasonMazard-KicsiPali<Ô> /
bkp<Ô> (link chk 171224)
Read also ¤ An Introduction to Kachchyana's Grammar
of Palilanguage, by James d'Alwis, 1863,
-
JAlwis-KachchayanaPaliGram<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180730)
The IE speakers were concentrated in the the north-western areas of India into which they had entered from the highlands of Iran. They were the harbingers of Iron Age, and with their iron implements of war they overwhelmed the original indigenous Brass Age peoples.
The IE speakers worship male-gods, primarily
Vishnu-dév
{baiþ~þa.no: nût} - the Vaishnavite-Hindus.
The Tib-Burs worshipped mother-goddess
{mè-tau} who are anthropomorphic entities,
such as
{a.mi.mrûn-ma} representing Myanmarpré, and
Bharat-Mata aka Mother-India. It is absurd
to consider such entities similar to human-females
who could have sex with male entities such as
Vishnu-déva
{baiþ~þa.no: nût} and Shiva-déva
{þi-wa. nût}. Yet, the Brahmins
{poaN~Na:} did exactly that.
- UKT 180821: We are always under the impression that there are only short, and long vowels in English and Sanskrit. It is not so in Skt-Dev, but more specific in Védic. Skt-Dev actually has three: «hrasva», «deergha», and «pluta». We need to know more about the three registers of Skt-Dev to compare to our Bur-Myan three.
Now, those at the Research station can watch: L104Skt<Ô>
From: The Concepts of Hrasva, Dīrgha and
Pluta in Vedic and Sanskrit Grammars, by
Chandra Barthkuria, 1990
-
CBarthkuria-PlutaVedicSktGrammVol25No1<Ô> /
Bkp<Ô> (link chk 180822)
"The technical terms Hrasva, Dīrgha and
Pluta representing short, long and prolated vowels
(containing three mātrās or
moras) appear for the first time in the
Prātiśākhya literature.
The Ṛgvedaprātiśākhya
of Śaunaka defines the terms as:
mātrā hrasvaḥ (1.27) / dve dīrghaḥ (1.29) / And tisraḥ pluta ucyate svaraḥ (1.30)
Just for this comparison we will reserve
{a.} (1 eye-blnk) to represent the inherent vowel of the Akshara.
{aa.} (1 blnk),
{aa} (2 blnk),
{aa:} (3 blnk with emphasis)
{ko.} (1 blnk),
{ko} (2 blnk),
{ko:} (3 blnk with emphasis)
That Hrasva, Dīrgha and Pluta are more important in Vedic than in Sanskrit has convinced me that Vedic was a Tib-Bur language just as Bur-Myan is. The Tib-Bur speakers, exemplified by the Pyus of Myanmarpré, were more peaceful, using bronze-weapons, than Sanskrit speakers with iron-weapons who overcame them and made them into Shudras - slaves and servants.
-- UKT 120121, 120602, 120622, 190226
The pronunciations of languages depend on vowels. Even when a foreigner takes two vowel sounds to be the same, they are different to the native speakers. This results in mutually non-understandable languages - not due to an unkind god, but to the different sets of muscles to produce what to the foreigner as the same vowel.
The following vowels are controversial, because they are the most back and the most open. They can be pronounced with various degrees of lip rounding:
¤
{o} to
{AU}
¤/
{AU:} to
• Skt-Dev as ओ «o» & औ «au»
• Skt-Dev diacritics: े (E) ै (Ai), ो (O) ौ (Au) - (names according to Windows)
To get to the Bur-Myan way of writing before
the British colonial-educators had to chance
to meddle in it, I refer to A. W. Lonsdale:
You will note that Lonsdale did not include
{o}. The 'flags', ो ौ, on the
aksharas should be compared to the those on
े {é} ै {è}.
The controversy on the varieties (tones or
registers) of vowels is based on several factors:
1. Production of vowels depends
upon linguistic groups, and within a linguistic
group, it varies from person to person. Since
the production of vowels depends on the muscles
of the hyoid complex, we can expect quite a
lot of divergence.
2. When the external facial
features differs from speakers of different
ethnicity, it is to be expected that the
contours of the vowel space would also be
different.
3. Though we usually think in terms of a
two-dimensional quadrilateral vowel diagram
based on the classical diagram of Daniel-Jones,
we must think in terms of at least a
three-dimensional one where lip-rounding is
taken into consideration. And then extend our
thinking into a four-dimensional one taking
into consideration the jaw positions, and of
course on the length of jaw which would be
dependent on the ethnicity of the speaker.
4. Last but not the least is the
Two-three tone problem between English-Lat,
the IE (Indo-European) language and
Burmese-Myan, a Tib-Bur (Tibeto-Burman)
which is also a Thibilant-nasal language
where the sounds of /θ/ {þa.} and
/ŋ/ {nga.} & /ɲ/ {Ña.} are
quite prominent.
The controversy is also due to the absence
of the series
{o.},
{o},
{o:} in both Skt-Dev and Eng-Lat.
The Romabama spellings given below are tentative: they may have to be changed with deeper understanding of the problems involved. -- UKT120121
&
are
different from very rhotic Sanskrit
graphemes. The hood over the Myanmar graphemes
has been has been drastically shortened whilst
those for Sanskrit has been lengthened as much
as possible, e.g.
in ऋ « ». Similarly, you will find a
shortening of hoods in {ra.ric}-medials.
- UKT 180911
The bronze-weapons of the Tib-Bur speakers could not stand against the iron-weapons of the intruders. The conquered people were eventually turned into Shudras 'the slaves and servants' of the conquerors and denied learning the Vedas 'the body of knowledge' which had been their own. The Bronze-Agers worshipped female Goddesses instead of male Gods.
UKT 180911: I wonder whether the Lawka Nat
{lau:ka.nût} (of Bur-Myan or Pal-Myan), probably the singing-master, and Nataraj (of Aus-Asi speakers) - the dancing-master - to be subservient to the Supreme Mother-goddess Devi. Vāc 'human speech'. Vāc 'human speech' anthropomorphized as
{þu-raþ~þa.ti mèý-tau}. Vāc, the 'human speech' can be transliterated as
{wa-kya.} 'sentence' governed by
{wa-kya.sæÑ:} 'syntax'. It is
Since there are bound to different indigenous
ethnics who are mostly Tib-Bur (Tibeto-Burman)
speakers and Aus-Asi (Austro-Asiatic) speakers,
and a few IE (Indo-European) speakers, they use
different sets of vocal muscles to produce the
vowel sounds, and their speeches would be
radically different as in the case of Bur-Myan,
Karen-Myan, Mon-Myan and Shan-Myan. The only
commonality is the phonetic script between them.
If we are to listen to Pali words (Theravada
Buddhism) spoken by those who use the common Myanmar
script, the script of our mother-land the
Myanmarpré - our heritage, we can understand
them to a large extent.
Remember: Myanmar script is
the unifying force of our motherland.
Refer to the Curse of Babel:
Script unites/
Speech divides .
Listen to how Mon-Myan speakers sing their vowels:
- row#1vow<)) : note the diacritic "super-circle with an inner circle for {ii}"
- row#2vow<))
To remind you that Mon-Myan phonology is quite different from that of Bur-Myan, listen to a Mon Akshara song: BkCdn-Mon-Aks<))
With this little song, I honour my great-grandmother Daw Mèma, a Peguan-Mon speaker of Manyan village (of Kungyangon township now incorporated into Greater Yangon). Her dialect is now extinct. I was born in Kungyangon town. None of my Mon relatives even know the akshara{ak~hka.ra}. Mon speech uses the basic Myanmar script, just like French speech using the basic Latin script. French speech
{prínþic sa.ka:} uses special diacritics such as é, so does Mon such as
{ii}. Remember French speech uses French phonology and English speech uses English phonology even though both uses the basic Latin script. If you were to pronounce a French word in English phonology, you could be misunderstood. In a similar way, Burmese speech uses Burmese phonology and Mon speech uses Mon phonology, and you cannot pronounce Mon words using Burmese phonology. Remember the whole world is under the Curse of Babel leading to strife and disorder.
The following is another song, set to modern music and sung by a Martaban-Mon speaker:
- BkCnd-da'na'ku'thol<))-
The first line gives the Mon-Myan text. The second line the Bur-Myan translation by Daw Mi Htay Kyi. Of course, most of you will not catch the pronunciation: even the first word-pair{da-na. ku.þo:l} is spelled the same in both languages - sounds
{di-né. kauk-Swa}. Consonant-to-consonant dnkþ > dnkS, they are the same. It conforms my motto: speech divides, script unites. and supports the motto of Shin Kic'si. I'm sure my great-grandmother will be pleased at my endeavor to bring back to life a dead dialect - her very own!
If you are familiar with Pali used by Theravada Buddhists in Myanmarpré you'll understand it's meaning: "Charitable donation - the act of merit". (Buddhism is the unifying force in our part of the world. )
I contend that the area just south of the Himalayas
extending into Tagaung Kingdom
{ta.kaún:præN} in northern Burma - must be treated as
included in the Magadha Mahajanapada
{ma-ga.Da. ma.ha-za.na.pa.da.} 'the foothold of
the Magadha culture'. Now I extend my contention
as: Myanmar script must have been known to the
Greeks, and in all areas which had been under the
influence of the Greeks and Alexander the Great.
End of TIL file
